Cybersecurity Trends 2024 and Beyond: Embracing Maturity in AI for Sustainable Security
A key focus in our exploration of cybersecurity trends 2024 is how mature AI developments will make cybersecurity more resilient, sustainable, and simple. Organizations are moving from spending a lot on complex systems to using smarter tech that makes security easier and more powerful. We expect AI to reduce the burden on people, making businesses more resilient against new threats and helping them adopt stronger, simpler security methods.
The Cybersecurity Industry’s Focus Will Shift to Resilience and Sustainability
In 2024, cybersecurity will pivot towards resilience and sustainability, emphasizing swift detection and remediation to minimize and contain damage. Automation will be key in achieving effective defenses without excessive spending, focusing on value and return on investment rather than sheer financial outlay. This approach will enable organizations to avoid downtime and recover operations swiftly, ensuring that CISOs can advocate for budgets based on strategic impact, not just expense.
Simplicity to Be Prioritized by CISOs as a Pillar of Their Cybersecurity Strategies
As we enter an age of ever-more mature AI-driven technologies, cybersecurity leaders will start to look past the AI noise made by vendors. CISOs will get rid of complex interfaces and dashboards to focus on what's important and opt-in for solutions that actually help them make informed decisions at the most critical of times, such as during incident response.
PasswordLess Consolidation & Adversarial Response
Soon, we expect a significant shift towards adopting models based on passwordless architectures like Google Passkeys as the dominant authentication method to combat phishing and scam campaigns. However, this disruptive change from traditional models will prompt a change in the focus of phishing campaigns to bypass these new architectures.
In response, adversaries will increasingly target obtaining complex variables from the device's environment, which they will use to bypass new authentication methods.
IoT and OT Networks Will Become More Entangled
Adversaries look to IoT and OT assets as a vulnerable point of entrance to organizations. In consequence, many vendors designed solutions for siloed IoT networks. However, it has simultaneously become more difficult to segment or silo these assets as they are increasingly entangled with cloud networks. The answer will be unified visibility across dispersed networks.
In 2024, Artificial Intelligence (AI) Will Play a Pivotal Role in Enhancing Zero Trust Cybersecurity
AI-powered threat detection and response systems will become mainstream, helping organizations identify and mitigate threats in real time. While ZT promotes rigorous network segmentation to minimize unauthorized access and lateral movement within networks, the challenge arises in managing and monitoring these segmented entities effectively. By analyzing vast amounts of data, AI will enable security teams to detect anomalous behavior and potential breaches more accurately.
The Lowering of the Learning Curve in Cybersecurity
From 2024 onwards, AI will empower Cybersecurity Analysts. Far from being an intimidating black box of advanced mathematics, AI will bring insights to humans that can be employed at scale. AI can assist in incident management by automating routine tasks, freeing up human analysts to focus on strategic work or leveling up skills where it matters most.
Entry-level cybersecurity talent will be able to operate at an expert level, lowering cybersecurity’s traditional steep learning curve and easing its talent shortage.
Deepfake + LLM, the New Combination in Every Adversary’s Toolbox
The use of deepfake techniques in fraudulent activities, particularly within the banking and financial sector, is expected to see a significant upsurge. The proliferation of user-friendly tools and techniques will elevate the sophistication of phishing fraud, making it increasingly challenging for users to distinguish between legitimate services and scams. New services will emerge and solidify their position in the market, aiming to identify and detect AI-based voice and video scams. Deepfake techniques could be incorporated into the cyber kill chain, replacing traditional entry vectors of social engineering.
State Responses to Combatting Ransomware Threats
The risk posed by ransomware attacks on critical infrastructure will make ransomware groups and their operations a major concern in the policies of Western superpowers.
The fight against ransomware enjoyed limited success in striking back against the Qakbot botnet in 2023. Western governments including those in the 5 Eyes Alliance will be thirsty for more. The key will be learning the lessons from the Qakbot exercise and scaling up operations to a global scale.
Data Poisoning Attacks
Enterprises will awaken to the threat posed by data poisoning attacks. These attacks involve deliberately skewing the data that AI models, such as machine learning algorithms, rely on to make decisions. By contaminating the training data, adversaries can manipulate AI algorithms such as those used to detect fraud and other irregularities. Financial institutions will need to enhance their capabilities to validate the integrity of the datasets used to train their AI tools, thereby safeguarding against compromised decision-making processes.
An MDR Will Suffer a SolarWinds-Scale Cyberattack
Managed Detection and Response (MDR) vendors, due to their pivotal role in cybersecurity, are increasingly likely targets for sophisticated supply chain attacks. Recent supply chain incidents like those affecting TicketMaster, SolarWinds, and Kaseya illustrate a clear pattern: attackers are exploiting trusted relationships to access a broader network of victims. This trend suggests that MDRs could be the next focal point for attackers seeking to compromise a wide range of state and local entities through a single, highly interconnected avenue.
Conclusion
As we look at cybersecurity trends for 2024 and beyond, we see a movement toward more intelligent, sustainable, and resilient security practices. At the heart of this evolution lies the principle of Continuous Compromise Assessment™—a methodology that has embraced the promise of AI since its inception in 2019. This approach ensures that defenses not only react in real-time but also adapt proactively, learning from each interaction to bolster the overall security posture. In embracing this paradigm, we find the essence of future-proofing cybersecurity: a relentless commitment to vigilance, the simplification of complex systems, and the strategic application of advanced technologies.